Figure 3. Actions of ACE2 on potassium, sodium and calcium imbalance and impact of SARS-CoV2 infection. Created with BioRender.com reported in patients with COVID-19 [26-28] and ascribed to treatments with macrolides and hydroxychloroquine [29, 30]. This highlights the importance to continuosly monitor and manage hypokalemia and electrolytes imbalances [31, 32] The limitations of this study lie in its retrospective nature and in the non-correlation of lab values with disease severity and clinical outcomes. Besides this, we believe that our findings are important to better understand the pathophysiology of COVID-19 disease, and especially sex differences in the manifestation of the disease which certainly impact on better prognosis for women. Clinical implications of this study are relevant from different perspectives. Monitoring kalemia, calcemia and electrolytes in general, is important in patients with COVID-19 and immediate supplementation should be suggested. The role of electrolytes imbalances should be further investigated also to understand the association with cardiovascular events reported in other studies.
AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS
A.P., E.I., F.S. contributed to study conception and design, data acquisition, analysis and interpretation, and paper drafting. V.C., C.A., A.B., contributed to data acquisition and analysis. V.A.F. contributed to study design and data acquisition. M.P., C.V., F.D.R., O.E., F.C., P.T., gave critical revision for intellectual content and contributed with patient enrollment and management. V.P., A.R., contributed to data analysis and interpretation, paper drafting, and gave critical revision. M.M., contributed to data interpretation, paper drafting, and gave critical revision for intellectual content. F.S. gave critical revision for intellectual content.
TRANSPARENCY DECLARATION
The manuscript is an honest, accurate, and transparent account of the study being reported; that no important aspects of the study have been omitted; and that any discrepancies from the study as planned (and, if relevant, registered) have been explained.
FUNDINGS
No fundings
Sex differences in electrolyte imbalances caused by SARS-CoV2: a case-control study LIST OF TABLES
  1. Normality and abnormality ranges considered for electrolytes 12
  2. Characteristics of study population 13
  3. Study population distribution according to kalemia 14
  4. Comparison between kalemia and SARS-CoV-2 infection according to age and sex……….. 18
  5. Univariable logistic regression of probability to develop hypokalemia for patients with SARS-CoV-2 infection 15
Table 1. Normality and abnormality ranges considered for electrolytes and relative HPO term